Mumbai: Mithali Raj, the skipper of the Indian women’s cricket team has been named as one of India’s most influential women by the BBC on Wednesday.
Delhi’s Tukika Kiran and Ira Trivedi, Bengaluru’s Aditi Avashthi and 65-year-old Mehroonisa Siddiqui alongside the 34-year-old Raj have been revealed to be a part of BBC’s 100 Women List 2017.
Aditi is the CEO and founder of a company named Embibe, while Ira is a writer, a yoga teacher and an activist. Tulika, for the last eight years, has been teaching children in the Tihar prison and Mehroonisa is the mother of famous Bollywood actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui.
The other Indian women to feature in this elite list are Dr. Urvashi Sahni, a social entrepreneur who is also a women rights activist and an educationist. Nitya Thummalachettym, who is a business analyst in New York in a health care analytics company named CareCentra also is a part of this list.
Steph Houghton, the 29-year-old skipper of the England Women’s football team and of her club Manchester City FC also is included in the list.
The women in this list, according to a BBC release are, “taken from across all spheres of modern life — from engineering to the creative industries, from sport to business — they represent the global wealth of female talent.”
The release further added, “The Indian women named are part of the list of 60 women from around the world who are working or campaigning in these fields or who have inspired others through their actions.”
Introducing the concept of the BBC 100 Women Challenge, the release stated, “The list has been inspired by the BBC 100 Women Challenge. New for 2017 this is a unique celebration of female talent which sees four teams of women tasked with finding solutions to everyday problems currently blighting female lives across the globe.”
Elaborating on this idea, it also added, “The challenge will be coming to Delhi from October 9-13 where a team will be are looking at female illiteracy. Other places hosting the 100 Women Challenge are Silicon Valley from October 2-6, where a group will tackle the glass ceiling; safety on public transport will be the focus for the London and Nairobi team from October 16-20. From October 23-27, women in Rio will consider sexism in sport.”